Page 79 of Bumping into You

“Only when I havemo ghráhere in my bed looking so soft and kissable,” he says, bending down to kiss my neck again.

“What’s that?Mo ghrá, you’ve said that multiple times now,but I haven’t asked what it means.”

“Hmm . . . It’s an endearment. I guess the translation would be ‘my love.’”

I startle, my jaw dropping at his answer. Chuckling, he reaches over and takes my chin in his hand as he closes my jaw then leans in to kiss me.

“Let’s get cleaned up, and then we can meet up with the others at breakfast.”

I nod, watching him as he gets out of bed. My cheeks instantly flush and my mouth runs dry. Damn, is he a fine specimen of a man. How the heck does he look so delicious first thing in the morning? His hair is askew, so different from the toned features of the rest of his body. I’ve never been much of a morning person, but honestly, Niall might turn me into one if I keep getting to wake up to this view. After turning on the shower, he walks back to the bed and leans over me. “You coming?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply, moving the covers off and taking his hand in mine.

To start off the bachelor and bachelorette party days, we have a combined escape game before the two groups split up for the rest of the day. Niall and I make our way to the escape room lobby to find the others already there, including Bradley and Tammy.

Seeing everyone grouped together has me thinking about the predicament I’ve put Niall and myself in. Bradley and Tammy think we’re a couple (and now we actually are), but no one else knows. I’ve filled Holly and Margot in a bit, but they don’t know the full extent of our relationship.

Now we have to pretend to be a couple in front of Bradley and Tammy, while at the same time making it so that the others don’t find out that we are a couple. I can’t have Greg finding out about us before I have the chance to tell him we’re together. He’d go allolder brother on us, and everything would be a mess right before his wedding.

Gwen, how do you plan to pull this off?

Chapter 34

Niall

We fill out our waivers as Melvin, the escape room instructor, starts his pre-game spiel: “You’ve got a great game ahead of you. You have to escape from the designated room in sixty minutes or less to successfully escape. While in the room, you’ll be looking for clues and solving puzzles. Anything with the ‘do not touch’ sign is not part of the game, and we ask that you don’t try to use it. Alright, any questions?” Melvin looks around at our group as we shake our heads.

“This is going to be so much fun,” says Holly, bouncing up and down on her feet.

“Definitely,” exclaims Margot. “It was a great idea to start off our bachelor and bachelorette parties this way.”

Melvin leads us into what looks like a mission control room at NASA. After we watch a brief intro video, Melvin releases us and the countdown to escape is on.

“Look, here’s a lock with a four-digit number code. Does anyone see anything that could give a number?” Margot asks.

“I don’t see any numbers,” I say, “but the writing on this whiteboard looks like we’re supposed to figure out a word from it.”

“Gwen,” says Greg, “why don’t you go over and see if you can help Niall with that, and Holly and I’ll look for the number with Margot.” Greg gives me a wink as he not so subtly pushes Gwen in my direction.

“On it,” Gwen says. Bradley looks in our direction, and Gwenquickly takes my hand in hers. I’m surprised she’s feeling open enough about our relationship to hold my hand in front of all her friends, but then I remember that Bradley and Tammy think we’re together.

Right, the boyfriend thing, not that it’s fake anymore, but still, have to hold up pretenses.Oh man, what did you get yourself into, Niall?

Greg is trying to push Gwen to spend time with me, not knowing that I have spent a lot more time with her than he would probably like. I’m not sure how he’s going to handle me being with his sister. Sure, we’d made a pact that I would spend time with her, but Greg made it pretty clear that he didn’t want me crossing any lines. Too late for that. . . .

“You two figure anything out yet?” asks Trent, moving over next to us. Gwen quickly lets go of my hand, and I notice Bradley furrowing his brow.I hope he didn’t catch that.How are we going to get through this game with so many different people knowing, or at least thinking they know, what is going on between Gwen and me? This is going to be a long sixty minutes. . . .

“The word is Galaxy!” says Gwen excitedly, punching the letters into the keyboard. A buzzing sounds, and a hidden wall opens up to a small space.

“Great job,” says Vivian.

“Gwen,” says Greg, “you, Niall, Gillian, and Miles crawl through and tell us what you find. I think we’ve almost got this code.”

“Yeah,” agrees Holly, “we’re just missing this one number here.”

I get down on all fours and crawl through a secret passage, Gwen, Miles, and Gillian following behind me. Once on the other side, I reach out my hand to help Gwen up. She takes it, lingering a bit longer than she needs to until Miles pops his head out.Noticing our intertwined fingers, Miles looks at us quizzically. I quickly drop Gwen’s hand and reach for a lever. When I pull it, a part of the wall the size of a door opens up, and the others walk through with ease.

Bradley and Tammy are the first through. I put my hand on Gwen’s waist, guiding her out of the way of the door.

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